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Ibn Miskawayh (d1030) Al Fawz al-asghar

(the small book of greetings)

from Rayy (Persia) worked in Baghdad.
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Abu Ali Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqub ibn Miskawayh (932–1030, was a Persian chancery official of the Buyid era, and philosopher and historian from Parandak, Iran. Miskawayh was born in Rey. In Baghdad, he served as the secretary of several viziers, he died in 1030 at Isfahan. He was the author of the first major Islamic work on philosophical ethics entitled the Refinement of Character (Tahdhib al-Akhlaq), focusing on practical ethics, conduct, and refinement of character. Tajarib al-Umam: Experiences of Nations; is one of the first eyewitness chronicles of contemporary events by a Muslim historian. The chronicle is a universal history from the beginning of Islam, but it cuts off near the end of the reign of Adud al-Dawla. His book Tahdhib al-Akhlaq contains one of the earliest descriptions of the concept of evolution. The Zanj (=people of East Africa) are part of it as the lowest form of human live.

As illustration is added a worldmap of Sadiq Isfahani from 1647. Africa is the triangel on the top right.

 

Taken from : www.diafrica.org/kenny/phil/phile5.htm

Le dictionnaire botanique d'Abu Hanifa ad-Dinawari par Muhammad Hamidullah

The Prophet occupies the summit of the Human hierarchy which extends from those who are endowed with the greatest subtlety of intelligence all the way down to the Zanj who live almost like beasts.

 

Between the two there is little distance; and if the (monkey) crosses it, he becomes a man. When he succeeds, he walks upright and gets a little of the discernment faculty that suits his level (of primitive man) near the horizon of the beasts. But already he is in a position to be able to guide himself well and to go to the sciences. The influence of the soul is strengthened in him and he accepts education because he has the faculty to understand and to distinguish. This influence, though high in relation to the ranks of the lower beasts of man, nevertheless remains very low and very much below the rank of the perfect man. This lowest rank of man and is at the highest point of the beasts horizon. It concerns the people of the most remote corners of the inhabited earth, at its extremities, from North to South, like the Turks and Zanj. There is hardly any difference between such people and the last grade of animals we just mentioned. These people are incapable of discernment that would lead to many utilities. No wisdom has ever been transmitted from them, nor do they learn anything from the people around them. That's why they are in a bad situation, and have little luxury. They are acquired without envy, and they are only good to be slaves and servants, like animals.

 

Miskawayh: Tahdhib al-Akhlaq (Refinement of Character)